My gardens ( 5 )

My gardens ( 5 )

Posted on 2 Sep, 2008 5 comments

Before we will get to the next garden I still like to talk a bit about the one we had in Darwin. A tropical garden is really not complete without a hammock, even if this one is not suspended between two palm trees. The reason we hadn’t done that was that we had an irrigation system which watered the garden pop up sprinklers, spreading the water all over the garden. The sections ( and there were 6 of them ) each had about 5 or 6 sprinklers and so within a couple of days the whole garden received water in the dry season. Even though the hammock was made from polyester thread, it probably would still have rotted away and certainly the steel rings at the end of the ropes, which you’d hook over the hooks in the tree or veranda posts. We opted for the last one which indeed was wonderful. Hubby loved it more than anything and often just went for a quick swing lazing around. After all he’s retired and it was his good right. But no sooner he’d lay down in it, he’d fall asleep. The dog would lie underneath to guard him. Quite a picture.
As our house there was quite small, we bought a kit shed which would serve as guest accommodation. It was 8×4 meters and we made one internal wall, and one section would be a bathroom. To do all this you have to have permission of course. The concrete pad was done by a concreter and a certified plumber had to be called in to install a septic tank and leach drain, an electrician had to come to do the wiring, which had to be dug underground. We did all the building ourselves. The plasterer also had to line the inside. We placed an airconditioning in the wall, for which I had to stand on a table and guide it through the hole, whilst hubby shoved it in from the outside. Everything had to be cyclone coded, which meant that the foundations were so and so deep and that the steel posts of the shed were anchored, screwed onto plates. We had a lot of waiting to do as an engineer had to come and inspect the works for the coding. Heavens! And that for only a shed, where occasionally guests would sleep. But anyway, it all eventuated and it was situated at the back in the corner of the garden, a lovely sleepy spot surrounded by trees and very private. But it took a lot of frustration on my behalf as I am impatient, and you should have seen the mess these trucks of the workmen had made. Lucky we had all that water and grass grew quickly and I planted some shrubs near it and did some landscaping. We had quite a lot of visitors too, because friends and family were all too curious to see what on earth we were doing there in the tropics and why we were raving on about all the lovely flora and fauna. But it really was like paradise, like a holiday destination. As we were situated right underneath some flypaths, it really looked as if we were in a holiday resort, swimming or sitting in the pool looking overhead at yet another load of tourists on their way. Our Pivot dog is a very excited dog and as soon as anyone was in the pool he’d run around it in circles egging us on. So thanks to him there was a path engraved. But we did have pebbles right next to the pool and where you enter we had some flagstones. Then of course if he’d run also close to the edge, he’d flick some of those pebbles into the pool. Well, you can’t win. On a 5 acre block you didn’t have to have a fence around the pool and the dogs pleased themselves, whenever they were hot just took a dip! We taught our little Cully to swim there. Of course all dogs can swim, but she was not going to get in when she was a puppy. So I got hold of her in my arms and like a baby I gently bounced her up and down so she could feel the water and the uplift of it. Yes, she took to it! Trouble was, she forgot to use her hindlegs and of course slowly went down and down. There is an edge to hold on inside the pool and she soon found that one, so here you could see her teaching herself how to swim and when tired quickly go to the edge or steps and just stand or hang in there. So funny. Later when she was bigger, she just jumped in by herself and swam around in small circles, then coming out, crossing the lawn to us on the veranda and suddenly shaking herself out. Haha, of course we got wet too.
But life was wonderful and as we sat down on the veranda each day for our pre dinner drinks, we’d see the sun set and how the position moved ech day, but there was of course not much difference between mid summer and mid winter and the days always had between 11 – 13 hours daylight. There were not many mosquitoes, you’d get them in stages, but never too many to bother you and besides we love the smell of the insence sticks. The natural one to use is sandelwood, which grows native in the tropics anyway. We did have an abundance of little gecko’s though. They were everywhere and I have placed photo’s of them here too. They’d hide behind the paintings inside and of course running along the window sills and frames and sometimes pooing too. Every morning I had to wipe the kitchen sink! But such is the life in the tropics.

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